Micrsoft VPC 2007 v.s. VMWare Workstation 6.5

I did a real usage comparison of VPC 2007 and VMWare 6.5 and im astonished by my experience.
The great thing that microsoft has done is to provide VPC free of cost but in lieu of this the end user has to compromise in many areas like:

• It is really good for those who can use it free to have multiple environments on same machine provided they have good configured box in terms of memory and processor
• VPC is not good in performance; i felt it too by working with it even with good configured machine. If running with 1 GB then you have memory issues for VPC
• There is not server and client version of VPC
• VPC cant be used by network admins to manage and control various VPC images to be shared among different teams like dev, test, implemtation etc with variety of roles
• The admin console in VPC lacks in various configuration and settings
• Atleast 2 VPCs makes the host machine very slow
• Hardware detection of host is not that effective; For example if you have any software that virtually adds something to your h/w then VPC will do least; also you may have to install sound drivers and etc again in VPC
• Network configuration is not very flexible and not very effective
• No cloud computing support
• And much more. Im not against VPC as i like it too much but when for the good and positive side of effective and productive usage of a tool i felt the need of few above points. I wonder why microsoft can’t make VPC more stronger and charge few more $ but to come out with a scalable and high performance tool

I wish if i could share the snapshots of VMWare Workstation but im running late for my dinner with friends and want to share this with  you all. VMWare Workstation 6.5 is just fantastic and im too impressed with this tool. This is what i explored in VMW so far

• It is not free but can be tried with a trial of 30 days but i hope that once you try it out then you wont let it go. It takes more space than VPC but its worth
• VMW is real fast like bolt
• I opened 3 images and all worked fine along with my host with 2 GB box
• Networking is really excellent in VMW
• Most of above points are taken care pretty well by this tool
• Many more features and definitely this is a better Virtual Imaging tool than VPC
• I was highly excited to see the working and performance of this tool

I can only say I’ve moved on from VPC to VMWare Workstation from today. I will be sharing more details and information on VMW

Virtual PC for Windows 7 RC

If you are running Windows 7 RC and wish to install XP or any other windows OS in a VPC then now you can do so. Microsoft just launched Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7.


Click here for more details.

Hardware acceleration in VPC 2007

When i started working with VPC i found one strange problem. It was something that i could not figure initially. I was running win2003 OS and finished installing VPC Addins and after reboot i felt that the mouse was flickering and the windows was taking long time to refresh the screen.

After some drill down few areas i found a fix.

1. Right click the desktop in VPC and select properties
2. Goto settings tab and click the Advance button at the bottom in the window
3. Select the Troubleshoot tab and set the hardware acceleration to FULL
4. Click Apply and ok

Enjoy the difference.